The World of Warcraft category on Twitch has had a gaping hole in it for the past few months after Asmongold took a break from streaming on the platform.
But the wait for his return could be nearing an end, the stream said in a video uploaded to YouTube yesterday.
Following the release of WoW Classic, his stream was the most-watched on Twitch among personality streamers, and he regularly carried WoW into the upper echelon of content on the platform due to his influence and draw.
In a YouTube video posted yesterday afternoon, Asmon explained why he’s been absent from Twitch since the middle of December saying that he wasn’t happy with the direction the stream was going.
“It’s something that happens and you don’t even know that it’s happened,” he said. “I felt like … I wasn’t really able to be who I am, and that really bothered me a lot.”
Asmongold’s rise in popularity over the past year has been one of the most drastic in terms of viewership. Last year, he recorded nearly three times as many hours watched as he did in 2018 with 57.1 million hours watched, and an average of 36,359 concurrent viewers, according to Stream Hatchet data. In 2018, he posted 21.7 million hours watched, averaging 17,385 concurrent viewers.
The increased success and exposure caused Asmon’s stream to change in ways that he started to realize he didn’t like, making the act of streaming unenjoyable for him.
“I don’t want it to be a weird drama filled circus full of these obnoxious clout chasing characters that are trying to get attention,” he said. “I moved into doing things for effect, doing things for show, and I like to be a showman. I really do, but it turned into something beyond that.”
Taking time to reflect on the quality of his content and the environment that he wants for his stream, Asmon said that he expects to return to streaming in around a week, but no later than two to three weeks from now.
He expressed frustration for missing out on an opportunity to stream the release of the 8.3 patch in retail WoW as well as Blackwing Lair in Classic, which each came out in the past month. He said that his aim is to make sure he is around to stream alpha testing for WoW upcoming expansion Shadowlands, which is set to release later this year.
